Monday, February 08, 2010

2009 part 3: 10 Celebrity Deaths

I wanted to peruse a comprehensive list of deaths, so first went to Wikipedia’s “notable deaths of 2009” article, but those clowns are insane. They had over 300 names for January alone, and I don’t really consider a dude who won a Bronze medal for cycling in 1936 as memorable.

I’ve ranked these deaths in order of impact from ”Who gives a fuck?” to “Holy shit, they died? Really? Oh well. Who gives a fuck?”. Of course your own list may look a little different, if you’re a 60 year old American, you might have given two shits that Ted Kennedy carked it for example.

Here be 9 persons and 1 animal who shuffled off our mortal coil last year, join me as I trivialise decades of their lives and achievements into a sentence or two.

Dom Deluise, 75

Actor, Blazing Saddles.

Cause of death: complications from diabetes and high blood pressure

Bea Arthur, 86

Old dude chick from Golden Girls

Cause of death: cancer

Farrah Fawcett, 62

Actress. Possibly batshit insane.

Cause of death: Anal cancer.

John Hughes, 59

Director. If you don’t know his films, then you weren’t alive in the 1980s. (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club , Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off )

His last film was Curly Sue in 1991, and then he disappeared from the public eye entirely in 1994. He was a farmer in his last years in Illinois, that’s random.

Cause of Death: Cardiac Arrest.

Dakota Fanning, 15

Actress.

Cause of death: Died in early December when a semi trailer carrying pitch forks toppled onto her in a freak accident.

Sam the Koala

Icon of hope during the Victorian bushfires.

Cause of death: Koalaymidia

David Carradine, 72

Old school actor, but you’re probably familiar with him from his surge of work in recent years. He’s been in 26 films and 11 TV shows since 2000, most notably as Bill in Kill Bill and trying to steal Jason Statham’s heart (literally) in Crank 2.

Cause of death: Unusual Circumstances (ie burping the worm with a belt round his neck).

Brittany Murphy, 32

Actress. Made famous by roles in Girl Interrupted, 8 Mile and Sin City.

Brittany Murphy was 2009’s traditional yearly “Actor fucking around with their medication, to disastrous results”, though her death wasn’t as much of a shock as Heath Ledger’s. Ledger went on to win a posthumous Oscar, while Murphy’s last half dozen films were direct to DVD releases.

Her husband Simon Monjack was completely devastated by her death, and it was no wonder, the dude was punching well above his weight. Murphy often looked like a crack whore that didn’t know what day it was – but could scrub up nicely when she made an effort. Meanwhile, Monjack looked like a spruiker from a Bulgarian Strip Club.

Patrick Swayze, 57

Actor. Fuck you if you don’t know who he is.

Cause of death: Pancreatic Cancer.

Not really a shock death, as Swayze was on his death bed for quite some time. Swayze is one of those dudes nobody gives a fuck about (check out his last 14 films on imdb, you may find them in the bargain bin at Blockbuster if you’re lucky) until he dies, and then we’ll have a nonstop barrage of clips of his work. Well, his work from 20 years ago anyway. I still think every bouncer should watch Roadhouse as the bible for proper bar room security etiquette.

Michael Jackson, 50

Singer.

The guy who everybody considered a joke, up until he died, then everybody missed him immensely. This is the death you’ll still be hearing about a decade from now, as court battles and inquests continue. He’s the Lady Di for the 21st century.

DJs continue to squeeze Jackson songs into their sets to relieve of us of the terrors of modern music. A Jackson song here and there helped me through the pure horror of Ace of Base in my uni days, built up my resistance to Usher in my London days, and now provide me with a vaccine to the gential wart that is Lady Gaga.

Our grandchildren will be getting jiggy to Billie Jean, during breaks from the war against the I-Robots.